Upon This Winter's Night
by mousie tongue
Summary: They aren't in high school any more: so why are they acting like two awkward kids staring across a dance floor at each other? Sequel to the AU Two for the Show. Explicit Clint/Natasha.
1. Between the lines upon the page

This is a sequel to my previous story, Two for the Show, so it takes place in an Alternate Universe from the Marvel Avenger's movie.

Contains violence, some bad language, and explicit sex in the second chapter.

Title and chapter headers are taken from Sarah Mclachlan's Song for a Winter's Night; yes, it's kind of sappy and sentimental, but Valentine's Day is almost upon us, so I'm in the mood for a little sap. Mixed with some whump, of course, because it's Clint and Natasha and because I do love whumping my favorites.

* * *

He has no difficulty picking her out of the crowd, despite distance and darkness and the lacy screen of evergreen branches, and he tracks her swirling progress around the room even as he's scanning the surrounding grounds and monitoring the chatter over his earpiece. Taller and broader bodies momentarily block her from his sight, but each time she dips back into view, a subdued figure sheathed in plain black but for the blaze of her hair. He can't see her expression—the distance is a bit too great for that sort of detail without a scope—but he knows from the briefing packet that she's tailored it to a bashful innocence and that she's peering up at her partner through her eyelashes in a manner calculated to make him feel like a titan.

"We have movement," Jacobs' voice murmurs over the comm. "Target's left the bar, he's… yes, he's taking the bait. He's incoming to our hook. Stand by. Shrike, make ready to acquire target."

"Yes, sir," Clint murmurs back through gritted teeth. He doesn't need to be spoon-fed every detail, but it's useless to say so—Jacobs is a precise and detail-oriented agent insistent on keeping tabs on every action through a running commentary.

_You mean control freak_, Clint can picture Natasha saying coolly, and he lets a smirk momentarily twist his lip in silent agreement. Still, he settles deeper against the broad tree limb he's stretched prone on, breathing deeply and minutely adjusting his position, bringing his bow up a fraction in readiness.

And below him the arms dealer they've been chasing across three continents steps up to Natasha and her dance partner, who relinquishes her with a short bow and a quick retreat.

Natasha Romanov sinks gracefully into her new partner's arms and is spun off across the gleaming marble floor, appearing and disappearing in the tall, arched windows of the ballroom as Clint tracks them from his faraway perch.

He counts three songs, judging by the ebb and flow of guests on the dance floor, before the target makes his move. They take leave of the dance floor, the target's hand in a proprietary grip on Natasha's elbow, her hair a vibrant flag even in the glittering wealth of diamonds and sequins and crystal that fill the ballroom.

"…the move," Jacobs is saying, an edge of hysteria to his voice. "Say again, Target and Hook are on the move. Approaching egress; Shrike, on alert! Your target is approaching… _Passing_ egress! They're passing the door… Fishhook, what are you doing? Agreed-upon exit is behind you now! Where are you going?"

_Shut up and let her work,_ Clint grinds out silently. He breathes in, out, and waits, tuning out Jacobs' blithering and listening instead to the night sounds—splashing water, faint music, wind moving through evergreen branches. He breathes, and waits, and a moment later two figures appear on the mezzanine, drifting alongside the stone balustrade and silhouetted against the ballroom windows.

"…another door," Jacobs raps out. "Target is visible. Shrike, acquire the target! Do you copy? Acquire the target and acknowledge."

"Yes, sir. Target acquired." _Too much chatter. Ignore the asshole,_ Clint thinks, and sets his sights on the man guiding Natasha with a hand pressed to her lower back around the outdoor terrace to a small, secluded balcony overlooking the fountain garden.

They stand at the balustrade for several moments, Natasha a slim, still shadow against the brightly lit windows, the target more restless, swaying slightly beside her, his hands rising to gesture out over the surrounding area. Clint can imagine him boasting, of his palatial house and grounds and the unimaginable wealth that allows such privilege, words to reel in the innocent young thing he's picked as his next conquest.

It's almost funny, then, that the suave asshole is unknowingly snared in a web of Natasha's weaving.

Almost.

The target pushes in close to Natasha then, angling to trap her between his body and the stone railing. Ice seizes Clint's guts.

He breathes, in, out, ignores Jacobs' shrill pleas to "Fire! Goddammit, Shrike, take the shot already!", tries to ignore the sick feeling poisoning his belly as Natasha tilts her face to the target's.

Clint waits until Natasha lifts one hand and rests it delicately on the target's sleeve.

And at their private, pre-arranged signal, he releases the arrow.

He doesn't watch it find its mark; he's busy watching Natasha twirl gracefully to the side as if she's still dancing, so not a drop of blood spatters her skin or hair.

* * *

Natasha stands in the center of the staging room, arms outstretched, as the tech assistant strips her of artfully concealed hardware. He unthreads the last comm wire from her hair, prompting a full-body shiver from Natasha. She turns and gives him her back.

"Unzip me, would you?"

The tech slides the zipper down without reaction, then goes back to stowing the comm and recording gear. Mere minutes later Natasha's in her street clothes, one shiv tucked in her boot and another strapped to her arm, exiting the hotel to climb into the back seat of a massive SUV.

Barton's already in the other seat, his bowcase resting against his knee. He gives her a quick once-over as she slips into the car, raises his eyebrows at her. She tips a tiny nod at him – _Yes, I'm okay_ – and quirks one eyebrow at him in return—_You?_

He nods, but there's a muscle knotted in his jaw that means he's gritting his teeth. Either he's stewing over something or the driver's been making Robin Hood jokes again.

They drive, fast, through the city away from the late arms dealer's estate and out into the countryside on the other side. Natasha sways with the motion, upright in the seat and unable to sink back and relax.

The phantom scent of licorice chases through her nasal passages.

There's a plane waiting at a secluded airfield; she and Barton are the last of the insertion team to board, and as soon as they do so the plane taxis down the airstrip and takes flight.

Jacobs joins them once they're in the air; he wants to spend the trip home talking. He's annoyed that Natasha let the target steer her out a different door than was planned, and that Clint waited so long to take his shot.

"The _point_ of using an archer"—and there's an undercurrent of derision in the word—"is that the killshot is silent so you can take it immediately upon acquiring the target! You don't have to wait until he moves out of earshot!"

"Yes, sir," Barton says flatly, and Natasha can tell he's in no mood to explain—again—why he waits.

Why, when he has a spotter and tech backup that give him a precise firing window, he waits for Natasha's virtually invisible signal.

_I trust her read on the sitrep above anyone else's,_ she'd heard him argue, more than once.

The other agents—older, more experienced—don't like that at all.

"Yes, sir," Barton is saying again.

Natasha's missed what he's responding to, but it has to be just more of Jacobs' micro-managing. She yawns gustily and unhooks two sets of earbuds from the armrest, passing one to Barton. "I need to decompress," she says pointedly. "You, Barton?"

"Yeah." He fits his set to his ears, effectively dismissing Jacobs. "Thanks."

Natasha's too wired for music, and the white noise track just sets her teeth on edge. She flicks off the audio, leaving the buds in her ears for camouflage.

Licorice coats the back of her throat.

_"Be a good girl," Uncle Alex had wheedled. "He just wants a cuddle."_

_"He doesn't just!" Little Natasha had protested, and_

_"I know," Uncle Alex said. "But I won't let him. Now be a good girl for me."_

Uncle Alexei had taken that mark for his money, not his life. And it was a pity, because by the end of that con Natasha had wished for nothing more than that the mark had ended up with a knife between his ribs.

The missions—like this one—where the targets get to touch Natasha are the hardest. Memories rise in a poisonous seep she can't wait to wash off.

Her eyes snap open. She's twisted and slumped in her seat, and now she twitches upright with irritation. Her skin feels greasy with the remembered press of hands and she itches, everywhere.

She wants a shower. Hot water. Exfoliating scrub. And the tart scent of grapefruit shampoo to fill her nose.

Barton pops the buds from his ears. He pats his shoulder. "You want me to prop you up while you take a nap?" he asks, indicating he'll fold back the armrest between them.

The thought of transferring the invisible handprints to Clint makes Natasha's scalp crawl. She shakes her head. "No! No, I just need… to get comfortable, and I'll be fine." She flounces in her seat, cranking the seatback down a few notches and stretching out. Hands folded on her stomach, she closes her eyes.

And misses the hurt that spasms across Clint's face before he puts the earbuds back in and turns his face to the dark window.

* * *

There's barely any turnaround before they spirit Natasha off to Europe, where she spends weeks at a summit, reading and reporting on the subtleties beneath the formal words. She finally arrives back at the Division to find that she and Barton have missed each other by mere hours—he'd shipped out to Hong Kong at the crack of dawn the morning of her arrival.

"We work better together," they've both insisted to Krippand, more than once.

"I know," is the handler's bland reply. "That's why you need to learn to play well with others. We're _all_ partners here at the Division."

It's not that Natasha _can't_ work with other partners. It's simply that she doesn't _want_ to.

But if it isn't 'team bonding exercises' keeping her from accompanying Barton and his ever-present bow into the field, it's a new cultural immersion program. Or boring assignments where she has to flatter and flirt while Barton gets to hang from a cliff face and fire arrows at impossible targets. Or else Barton's at one end of the country fine-tuning targets at a training center while she's at the other end, testing prototype body armor.

Together they could be a force to be reckoned with, if only they were paired up more often.

Maybe that's why the Division works so diligently to keep them apart.

* * *

It's another four months before Clint gets to work with Natasha again—sixteen weeks of passing each other coming and going, and the brief, coded messages they use to keep tabs on each other.

"Bosnia—an in and out. You?"

"Moscow. Two weeks, max. Were you limping?"

"Fell through a shed roof in Miami, scraped up my shins. You looked beat at that debriefing."

"Language immersion for the next op. I'll bring you back some Green Tea Kit-Kats."

The mission is straightforward, "basic and low-key", Krippand tells the team. With the cover story of setting up a stateside distribution operation, Lind will be initiating contact with a Central American drug lord, while Natasha poses as his trophy wife. A tech team will record evidence while Clint keeps watch from afar.

"Observation only," Krippand says firmly. "This early in set-up there's no reason to puncture anyone unless things go completely pear-shaped."

So of course things go pear-shaped the first evening they're in-country.

Clint's still doing equipment checks in the staging room when the comm behind him pops. "Black Humvee, tinted windows, military antenna mount, coming up on our six," Natasha says quietly.

Mackie has her feet on the fake-rattan desk and a guava pastry balanced on her stomach. "Problem?" she asks around her sticky mouthful.

"Maybe," Natasha starts, only for her voice to be overridden by Lind's.

"None anticipated," he says, impatience threading his tone. "We're just being followed from the restaurant. We knew we'd be under surveillance from the minute we passed Customs."

Clint starts to lay his bow on the coffee table, thinks better of it and slings it onto his back, and crosses to the desk. "Ma'am, Romanov's take on the situation is usually accurate…"

"Quiet." Mackie rolls upright. "Lind?"

"We're good. They parked behind the restaurant, are just tracking us back to our hotel."

"No plates," Natasha breaks in, low. "Black matte wheel rims, Wrangler Mud Terrain tires, treads muddied, two nicks in the hood paint..."

"There's no problem here. Drop it, Romanov, and _smile_."

"…shallow dent above the windshield…"

"We're five blocks from the hotel. We're _fine_."

Mackie tugs the laptop closer and taps a key, bringing up the tracking. "I see you. You're clear except for the tail. Proceed normally."

"Ma'am…"

"Quiet. Everyone with an invitation to Friday's soiree is being watched. It's the target's SOP."

Clint snatches up his quiver without taking his eyes from the onscreen map. A pair of dots inch along the grid of streets, and he scans the layout, the location of the room he's waiting in and the hotel Natasha and her "husband" are heading towards, the distance between the two. He flicks his own comm. "I can be above you on lookout in three minutes."

"Barton, stand down. Lind says it's under control."

Noise cascades over the comm just then—a scratch of static, Lind's startled huff of breath followed by a curse, Natasha's quiet voice beneath a roar of engine. "They've moved on us. They're pulling up fast…" Sharp commands in Spanish drown her out, a vehicle door slams, and the comms cut off.

On the screen, the agents' locator signals blink out.

* * *

By the time Clint drops into position on a roof overlooking the villa, Natasha has been held by enemy hands for just over 24 hours.

He trips his comm while rapidly breaking out his bow. "Do we know which room?"

Mackie is groundside, in a nearby garage behind hastily-reinforced cement-block walls. "Best estimate, the one behind the main entry—looks to be a sunken den or study. We think the french doors on the north wall open to that parlor."

Clint scoots sideways to pan across the indicated doors with his scope. "Negative. That room's empty, not sunken, and has a single open archway leading to… a dining room, looks like."

"Then the study must be an interior room with no direct outside access. Shit."

"Dunn in position. Romanov and Lind's main comms are inactive, but I'm close enough now to pick up Romanov's backup wire."

"Patch it through."

_"No one is coming for you."_

Cold sweat springs out down Clint's back despite the oppressive heat. Relief—she's alive to be taunted; and rage—she's a prisoner being taunted—ricochet around his head. He eases down the roof on his belly, sizing up what he can see of the villa below him.

"You are only causing yourself more pain." The voice coming over the comm is dripping with disdain. There's a _crack_ of flesh being struck and Clint snarls silently. "Tell us who you work for and Hector here will give you water, a cold facecloth, even something to eat." There's another, louder, _crack._ "I will have no reason to hit you further."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Natasha whimpers. "I told you, Bobby owns his own business, he doesn't work for anyone. I used to be his secretary, but I quit when we got married so **I** don't work for anyone. We're just here to look at crafts for import."

"You think I am stupid? You were _wired!_"

"Bobby likes to play games!" Natasha's voice has gone squeaky and desperate, and Clint has to remind himself that it's part of an act. "He likes spy movies, and then we… we…" Her voice drops in shame. "We roleplay," she sobs. "There's a website, for spy gear. He likes me to dress up."

"He likes nothing any longer." There's a harsh scrunching sound and the audio weakens. Faintly Natasha screams, there's scrabbling—feet seeking purchase on a bare floor—and then a clatter. The audio clears. "You don't like your hair pulled, eh? Well, you tell me what I ask, and I don't pull your hair anymore. Pick her up," the voice adds sharply.

Something scrapes, and _clacks_; eyes closed, jaw clenched, Clint reads the clues in the sounds—Natasha's bound to a chair; Rodriguez grabbed her hair, where the backup comm, thin as a hair itself, is hidden; she and the chair were wrenched to the floor; and then she was set upright once more. He taps his own comm.

"Mackie, I can hook a line to the chimney and access the roof."

"Quiet. I want to hear this," Mackie replies.

"You killed him? You killed Bobby? But why?" Natasha cries in the background.

"Mackie, I can get inside ASAP…"

"She can take care of herself, and you know it. Now maintain radio silence, Barton!"

Clint forces back the words that want to erupt from him. He _does_ know it, dammit.

It doesn't mean he has to like it.

"A man seeking to join my network, who then shows up in my town wearing surveillance wires, is a man who is dead," Rodriguez sneers over the comm.

"He wanted to import pottery!" Natasha wails. "Wood carvings! Woven purses!"

"My dear child, are you that stupid, or do you think I am? Your husband was posing as a drug dealer, and sought to set up a connection to my network. I want to know who put him up to it."

"Got him!" Mackie says with grim satisfaction. "Barton, I'm sending the teams in now. You'll stay on point and provide backup sharpshooting to the big guns only. Team Alpha, Team Charlie, move in front and west. Team Bravo, cover the back alley…"

_Screw that_, Clint thinks, and he rolls upright while reaching over his back to his quiver. He draws out a specialized bolt; one swift stride brings him to the edge of the roof. Only a faint _chunk_ betrays the grappling hooks sinking in to the broad stone chimney on the adjacent roof.

Short, sharp commands snap back and forth over the comm; those he ignores. Beneath them is the shriller, more frantic sound of Natasha protesting, denying… and drawing further admissions out of Rodriguez even as she's crying. Those sounds he files away for deferred concern, for after he gains access to the villa.

He turns, affixing the grappling line to the roof he's standing on with one shot of a pressurized bolt. The line slants slightly downward, toward the villa; he'll just barely be able to clear the perimeter wall and the motion detectors ranged along the top of it.

'Just barely' is not going to be a problem for him, though.

Clint swings his bow around to his back, seizes the line with both hands and hooks one ankle around it, and hand-over-hands his way swiftly across the street, past the wall and over the interior courtyard. He lands lightly on rounded clay tiles, softening his steps so his boot soles don't clatter as he crosses the roof. His gaze cuts back and forth, estimating his position from the scant intel Mackie dug up on the villa's layout and his own brief glimpses through windows and doors.

Here. A room in the center of the villa, behind both the expanse of the grand entry hall and the protective bulk of the stone chimney… should be beneath his feet _here_. Clint drops to his knees and jams the blade of his largest knife beneath a clay roof tile. A quick, hard wrench cracks it in half; he pushes the pieces aside and starts on another, and another. In seconds he has a small area cleared of tiles, exposing the wood sheathing beneath.

A quiet back-and-forth is still coming over the comm, as the teams inch their way into position. Clint peels an explosive button out of its packet and nearly drops it as Rodriguez abruptly ceases berating Natasha.

"She's either very stupid or very tightlipped. Whichever it is, this approach is taking too long." There's a pause, during which Clint sticks the button to the exposed subroof and retreats to the relative safety of the chimney. "She has very pretty legs. Shoot her feet off them at the ankles."

"Mackie?" Clint snarls, his heart racing until it threatens to choke him.

"Hold, Barton!" Mackie snaps back, and "Preparing to breach the wall in fifteen," Alpha-One says. "Fourteen, thirteen…"

_Too long,_ Clint thinks distantly. Natasha will be maimed and bleeding out before a single one of them clears the front door. He triggers the button.

The resulting explosive _pop_ sounds deafening after the hushed noises of the operation, but actually is controlled and quite small. Most of its force is projected downward, blasting through the roof instead of blowing it apart or skyward. The flames and splinters are still geysering up as Clint pushes off the chimney, strides hard across the roof to the smoking hole, and leaps.

He crashes through the splintered sheathing, and then the plaster of a vaulted ceiling below it. Something scrapes along his back—_a wall_, he realizes, and is fleetingly grateful he didn't jump six inches to the left, or he'd have ended up straddling wall studs instead of… crashing a good twelve feet through open space to the hard tile floor of Rodriguez's study.

His feet hit first, knees bending to absorb the shock, followed by his hip and shoulder. The impact jars the breath from Clint's lungs, but he rolls upright anyway, dragging his bow from his back into readiness. He takes in the room in a sweeping glance.

Unadorned plaster walls, tile floor, single door opposite the wall-spanning fireplace. Sparse furniture—a sculpture in one corner, a table serving as a desk, a plush wingbacked chair drawn up to it, and a second, occupied chair in the center of the floor. Three men—one short, rotund, ducking aside by the hearth—a second, still in crouched motion to cover the first—and a third, standing tall and unflinching despite debris raining around him, turning from a seated Natasha, her hair disheveled and her mouth a red smear. The third man's arm is outstretched, a heavy squared-off handgun swinging from its mark on one of Natasha's bare feet to the intruder suddenly within their midst.

_Third man's the immediate threat to be neutralized._ Clint's bow is already up, aimed. He's a hairs-breadth from releasing a shot when an almighty punch slams into him beneath his upraised arms.

Clint has a brief, confused glimpse of Natasha doing something powerful and flexible with her bound body as the room tumbles around him. Then the tile floor cracks him in the side of the head, and everything goes black.

* * *

To be continued...


	2. If I could know within my heart

Happy belated Valentine's Day! Sorry for the long wait, but here be porn to make up for it.

* * *

Getting smacked in the face is getting old, fast. Natasha can't tell if her team is hearing any of what Rodriguez is spilling, but she's ready to call it a wrap and kick him in the throat anyway.

And then the ceiling crashes down on them all.

_Oh, good,_ she thinks, ducking against the avalanche of plaster chunks and splintered wood. _That must be Barton._

It is indeed Barton, bursting out of the sky to the rescue like an avenging angel.

She doesn't actually _need_ rescuing, but try telling him that.

She slumps down in the chair she's bound to, to give herself enough slack to get a leg raised and kick the gun out of Pinto's hand. But before she can strike, the gunman turns, shifting his aim from her ankle to the figure rolling to his feet and snapping his bow to readiness, over against the far wall.

Barton's fast, but Pinto doesn't have the disadvantage of recovering from a 12-foot drop.

He shoots Barton square in the chest.

Natasha's mind recedes to a cold, narrow focus. A part of her hears Clint's startled grunt at the impact, sees his body fold in on itself and crumple to the floor, but she shunts aside any emotion just as ruthlessly as she earlier put aside her own pain and thirst and fear.

**_One_**. Highest immediate threat: Pinto, the goon with the gun previously pointed at her, currently trained on Barton. Natasha flexes her shoulders and back, straining her arms against their restraints and propelling herself into a serpentine motion that allows her to hitch her chair forward. That brings her within kicking range of Pinto; normally she'd kick him in the balls, but he's angled away just enough to make that a less-than-debilitating strike.

She drives her foot into his kidney instead.

His breath explodes out in a harsh bark of pain, and he lurches forward, gun swinging off its target of Barton's head. Natasha hitches the chair closer again and kicks out, sweeping the gunman's feet from under him. She moves even as he's still falling, pushing to her feet with the chair still anchored to her. She kicks Pinto's shoulder with all the force she can muster; his gun arm jerks in reflex, sending his weapon clattering away across the floor.

Barton hasn't twitched. Natasha stomps down on Pinto's throat, feels him convulse beneath her bare heel, and stomps down again for good measure. She spins to face the remaining men.

_**Two.**_ Hector's just a glorified bouncer, but he's a deadly bouncer. At the moment, he's shielding his boss who's crouched by the hearth, and pulling a handgun from the back of his waistband.

Natasha takes a running start, bending forward to keep the chair legs from scraping the floor. She slams into Hector, leading with her shoulder so the weight of the chair is added to her momentum. He's driven into the fireplace with a satisfying _crack_ of skull against stone.

He keeps his feet though, and fumbles his gun out and around. From the corner of her eye Natasha glimpses Rodriguez starting to turn from a square dark hole opened in the fireplace surround, a pistol in his hand. _Need to hurry…_

She draws back to ram Hector again, dropping her shoulder a little lower to catch him in the ribcage. His breath huffs out with explosive force in tandem with the crunching give of bones caving in. She whirls, driving one chair leg viciously into his near knee, tearing a shriek from him. It has a strangely breathless quality to it and she body-slams him again, hard, targeting lungs she hopes have been punctured by broken ribs.

Hector rebounds off the fireplace and collapses. Natasha's spinning with exquisite timing as he falls, so that just before his puny-bearded chin smacks the floor, her heel is there to meet it, connecting with a _crack_ that snaps his head back and flips him to land on his back.

She leaves him leaking red foam down his jaws and turns to Rodriguez.

_**Three and done.**_ The meaty hand lifting the hold-out gun toward her is adorned with thick silver rings sunk into the flesh of his fingers. The marks of those rings still burn on Natasha's face. She ducks low to charge Rodriguez, to get in under his gun before he can fire. One-two-three swift hard steps, and on the last, she plants her foot and pivots so she hits him chair legs first.

He's a bulky man, with a mound of belly that's packed dense and tight, not flabby and loose. The chair feet land, two high, on his chest, two low, at his gut, and the solid flesh bounces Natasha back like a trampoline. She stops her rebound with a foot wedged in the narrow crack between floor and hearth and puts every ounce of strength into pushing back into Rodriguez.

"Puta!" He swipes the gun at her head and Natasha ducks, still pushing as he punches at the seat of the chair with his other hand, trying to dislodge her. Spittle sprays the side of her face, neck, and arm, and Natasha _has had enough of this shit._

Barton's in an unmoving heap on the floor; Natasha's chilled from being locked in the wine cellar all day, hungry, and aching; Lind not listening to her got them into this mess to begin with, and getting himself killed is just the icing on the whole Gone-To-Hell cake.

Natasha is _done_.

White heat is seeping back into the coldness driving her; she digs her feet against the crack in the floor, using that slight leverage to force the chair deeper into the man's belly. A hard shove gets the chair feet indenting the loose white shirt covering his torso; another, harder one finally pierces cloth and skin and Natasha drives backward.

Rodriguez is just leveling the gun at her temple when his skin splits beneath the chair feet. His body seizes; and then his gun clatters to the floor as he grips the chair legs in both hands and screams.

Natasha pushes, feeling the chair sink slowly deeper. Her eyes are on Barton, crumpled across the room; she thinks she sees his booted feet stir sluggishly. There's a crash from the front of the villa and an answering one from the rear and she pushes backward one last time as Mackie's recovery teams smash down the doors and pour into the room in a flood of riot gear and weapons.

"Down, down, down!" the leader is screaming, and Natasha wrenches forward off Rodriguez's body and drops to her knees; behind her, the drug lord is still shrieking thinly. She lifts her face so the team can ID her as they spread through the room, jerking their weapons to cover the bodies she's left strewn about and the fireplace and gaping hole in the ceiling.

"Agent Romanov?" the leader asks, and Natasha nods once.

"Yes." She bends forward. "Cut me loose, _now_."

One slash of a blade severs the zip ties securing her. The chair falls from her back and clatters to the floor in front of a writhing Rodriguez, but she doesn't spare it, or him, a glance. She's across the room in a blink, dropping to her knees once more beside Barton.

His feet scrabble ineffectually against the floor and the noise he's making sounds like someone is strangling a drowning warthog. Natasha pulls the bow from his convulsive grasp and slips a hand behind his neck.

"Barton, breathe. Slow, slow. Sip the air like it's boiling coffee. Slow down, I won't let you choke. Good—again. Slowly. Little sips. Good."

She rocks the back of his neck with her hand, her thumb laid lightly against his racing pulse. He arches against the floor, hands rising to claw at his chest, and she pushes them back down. "Easy. You're okay, I promise. Just one breath; good. Now another; good." She rocks his neck again, giving him a contact point as a distraction against panic.

"Is that Barton?" One of the team—Bravo One, she notes absently—leans in for a look. Natasha nods, her free hand moving down the front of Barton's vest, unfastening it so she can part the sides and expose the body armor beneath. She pinches the flattened bullet out of the meshed fibers and holds it up.

"Get a medic in here ASAP. I think he's okay, just got the wind knocked out of him, but I want him checked out anyway."

"Will do." The man ducks his head, relaying the request into his comm, and Natasha turns back to Barton.

His chest is rising and falling more evenly now, a little shuddery hitch to each inhale but otherwise fairly steady, and his eyes are open to glassy slits. She pulls her hand from behind his neck and lays it on his upper chest to keep him pinned in place, because sure enough, he's struggling to sit up as soon as he starts getting his breath back. "Stay down, you jackass."

"Tash…?"

"I'm good." She frowns. "Did you come busting in here ahead of signal?"

Clint draws in a careful breath. His eyes clear a little and his gaze travels slowly down from the top of Natasha's tousled head to her knees pressed to the floor. Natasha swipes at her split lip with the back of one hand, annoyed with herself for the self-conscious gesture.

"Had to. He was gonna… shoot your feet off."

"He was not." Natasha shifts from her knees—the tile floor is hard beneath them—to her seat, keeping her hand planted firmly on Barton's chest in case he gets any ideas about moving. "I was about to kick the _shit_ out of his gun hand when you crashed in and spoiled my strike."

Clint's mouth thins like he's biting back sharp words. "Wasn't going… to take that chance," he rasps out finally.

A swirl of anger sparks in Natasha's middle, anger at her competence and proficiency are being questioned. There's a clatter at the door, and a corpsman hustles in, hauling a boxy med kit with him. Natasha takes the opportunity to withdraw from Barton's stubbornly concerned gaze and she rises, nodding down at the sprawled archer.

"This one here needs a once-over. Bullet to the armor over his sternum, had the wind knocked out of him. Hit his head on the way down with momentary loss of consciousness."

_Hit his **bull** head_, she wants to say, but manages to restrain herself. She steps aside as the medic takes her place, unfolding his kit and barking at Barton to "Stay put and let me do my job!" and Barton subsides with a resigned look on his face.

A moment later Mackie strides through the door; Natasha leaves them to it and goes over to report in.

* * *

_That was a rough one_, Clint thinks wearily as he shoves the door to his quarters closed and slumps against it. The solid _snick_ of the door latching seals out all ambient noise from the building and he tilts his head back and closes his eyes, simply reveling in the quiet for a moment.

His head is still ringing from his session in the Director's office.

After another minute he pushes upright and shuffles down the short hallway, hooking his keycard onto the holder hanging just inside the door. The hall opens out into a small living area, a kitchenette to the left and doors to the tiny bedroom and even tinier bathroom straight ahead. Sparse, Division-issue furniture crowds the space; Clint drops onto the metal-framed couch and lets his head sag, contemplating his boots. After another moment he decides unlacing them is too much effort, and he leans back, swinging his feet up onto the thin cushions.

Reporting to Medical is never fun; and it's even less fun when their scans and evaluations are followed by a reaming out in the Operational Director's office. Clint closes his eyes and presses his knuckles into his eyes.

He can't even commiserate with Natasha, mocking both himself for getting in hot water and the Director's nostril-flaring annoyance until he's teased a full-fledged laugh from her.

Natasha's been cool towards him ever since the villa.

He knows he's not imagining it; she only called him 'jackass' once, and on the plane ride home she didn't back him up when he wanted to sit in a seat and the medic wanted him strapped to a gurney. "He hit his _head_—he might still be woozy!" she'd exclaimed, with overly-solicitous worry in her widened eyes, and flat on his back he'd gone, tough webbing straps buckled around his hips and under his arms.

Even better was that he'd had to pee halfway home, and after Natasha had blinked innocently at him and asked "Are you still _wobbly_, Clint?", the medic had followed him to the lavatory and waited outside, which, c'mon—he's not _five_, and he's not an invalid.

Mostly.

Clint gingerly rubs his chest—the impact point is sore as hell though he won't admit it, and has already turned a deep purple-black. No broken ribs, luckily, and no cracked sternum. Drawing his bow hurts like a sonuvabitch though; Medical has banned him from the shooting range, but he'd found an empty hallway and tried a few practice shots there, and, umm: not a good idea.

He'd vent at Natasha, but… Yeah. She's being cool to him and he doesn't even know why.

It's not like blindly following bullshit orders is a high priority to her. And it's not like she gets ticked off at him for getting a little banged up on a mission. So, what the hell?

Clint opens his eyes and stares out the room's single window, at the bleak winter sky slowly shading into darkness; he tries to track back to the exact moment she went all stiff and weird on him. He's gotten as far as the hazy moment of waking up half-suffocated on the floor of a villa with the warmth of her hand grounding him, when his door chimes.

He automatically checks his phone. No -0- (zero, a nought, Nat) appears on the text screen, which is her private signal to him.

_Shit, what now?_ Clint heaves himself to his feet.

It's Krippand at the door, and Clint's spirits lift a fraction, because if he were being formally reprimanded they'd send a intern to fetch him back down to Administrative and then they'd lay the riot act on him.

Krippand's just going to slap him on the wrist, it seems.

The handler has a sealed folder tucked under one arm, and is giving him a sour look with his beady little eyes. "You're on medical leave for two weeks, Barton," he says without preamble. "You'll need to report for a physical re-eval at that the end of that time, and until then you're barred from the shooting range. If you're observed using the corridors, courtyard, or roof as a substitute, your weapons will be confiscated and placed in lock-up. Is that understood?"

_It could be worse; he could have yanked your bow just for giggles,_ Clint tells himself. "Yes, sir," he answers.

"Following medical leave, officially you'll be on suspension for an additional two weeks for failure to follow orders in a combat situation." Krippand whips the folder from beneath his arm and holds it out to Clint. "_Unofficially_, you'll be dealing with this."

Clint takes the folder with a sudden jolt of excitement. Not even a slap on the wrist, then—just a mission with an extra layer of delicacy and subterfuge. "Who's my team?" he asks as he toggles the sealing mechanism and opens the folder.

Krippand stares at him without expression. "No team. This is on you alone, Barton."

"Sir?" Clint starts—no one _ever_ operates alone, it's completely unsanctioned—and then further words die in his mouth as he gets a look at the folder's contents.

The left-hand pocket holds a plane ticket; he can see at a glance it's a standard-issue open-ended Division ticket. The ticket and a Division swipe card presented at any airline counter on the continent will get him on the next flight to any destination of his, or Division's, choosing.

Clipped to the right-hand side of the folder is a stack of glossy colored sheets. The top one shows a row of women's headshots, each tagged with a personal identification number. Clint gives the rest of the stack a quick flip and finds it to be stats on each of the women: their vitals, their interests, their particular areas of talent and expertise. He lets the sheets riffle through his fingers as his stomach drops in an icy landslide to his boots.

Each of the women is red-haired, and bears a passing resemblance to Natasha.

He raises his eyes and finds the handler gazing at him with the studied blandness of a career bureaucrat. "Read through the file; there's a voice mailbox listed at the end, and entering the PINs will let you listen to their voices to help you choose. Then when Medical clears you, you pick one of the subjects, and you pick a destination—I recommend somewhere warm, and tropical, to get a break from this cold weather. Behind your ticket is a selection of various locations where we maintain luxury suites. You and your chosen… companion… will spend two weeks of downtime." Krippand gives him a chilling smile. "Getting Romanov fucked out of your system."

Clint jerks back as if he's been struck.

"You heard me," Krippand says. "She's on your radar too much and I can't have you distracted. You're both professionals. She seems to have accepted that, but I'm not sure you have. So know this: You can never have her. I can, however, provide some quite reasonable substitutes. You pick one, you pretend she's Romanov, and you fuck her, and then you come back to work with her _out of your system_." He reaches over and taps the folder sharply with one finger. "Got it?"

Clint stands frozen until the handler turns and walks away down the corridor. Only after the elevator has closed behind him with a quiet _ping_ does Clint back up and close his door.

His head is buzzing and the edges of his vision have gone dark and fuzzy. Clint stares down at the folder still clutched in his hand—slivers of luxurious private resorts peek out from behind the airplane ticket, and the eyes of the red-haired women are glaring up at him accusingly.

_Fuck her out of your system. Jesus._

The folder slips from his nerveless fingers and splays across the entry hall. Clint stares at it for another long moment, stomach churning, and then very carefully steps over it, stretching so not even an edge of the vile papers touch his boot soles. He opens the closet door and pulls out a coat, not his Division-issued flak jacket, but the plain, heavy-duty one from the far back of the closet.

There are gloves in the outer pockets, and tucked in an inner one is his slingshot and a small, heavy tube of Stark's lethal little pellets. There's some spare cash pinned to the inner lining, an extra ID and keycard, and that's all he needs.

Clint shrugs on the jacket as he exits the residential block. Jogging sends painful jolts through his bones to his sore chest, but Clint's been through basic training twice—once with Stark Industries Security, and once with Division—so a strong, ground-eating stride is second nature to him.

Moving at a steady clip, he heads out into the darkening winter chill.

* * *

_Enough is enough,_ Natasha fumes, glaring at her phone's screen. It shows three unanswered texts to Barton, and two calls that have gone to his voicemail. She knows Medical released him, and she knows he's been and gone to the Director's office already.

_If he's avoiding me…_

She jams the phone into the pocket of her jeans and yanks open the door that leads down from the roof. She hasn't seen him since they landed yesterday, and Barton hasn't turned up in any of his usual hidey-holes.

He'd pissed her off, and on the flight back he seemed to pick up on that fact. Now he's had all night to figure out _why_ she's annoyed, and she's had time to simmer down. As Natasha trots down the stairs to the residential wing, she's determined to have it out with him.

They _are_ friends (close ones) and partners (when they're permitted), after all.

That doesn't mean he can start mother-henning her the minute a mission goes sideways, though.

As soon as she finds him, they can clear the air. Set up a code for 'I need your help' if it makes him feel better, as long as he gives her free rein when she doesn't.

Natasha's not a child, she's not a damsel in distress, and the quicker Barton clues in to that, the better they'll work together.

She figures she'll try his quarters again. He hadn't answered the door earlier, but maybe he was brooding. She exits the stairwell at his floor, pulling out her phone to send the quick coded text so he'll know it's her before pressing his door chime.

Still no answer.

She leans on the door jamb and scrolls through her staff programs. Barton's on medical leave, so his name doesn't come up on the active roster. His locator places him in his quarters, but Natasha knows he has no problem with synching up his Division-issue phone to a private, untagged one and going off the grid for a few hours. His tagged phone could be sitting innocently on his couch while Barton's out perched in a tree or clinging to a rooftop somewhere.

She presses his door chime once more for good measure. When that brings no response, she brings out her lockpicks from an inner pocket.

The extra layers of security in the building make popping the door lock a fiddly business. Natasha's still easing a third pick into the keycard slot, holding and twisting the other two with the pinkie and knuckle of her other hand, when the door is suddenly yanked open beneath her.

She straightens quickly, not letting it throw her off balance. Barton stares at her dully.

"You heard me?" Natasha asks.

Clint nods. "The picks were clicking," he says in a voice as flat as his expression, and Natasha narrows her eyes at him. His hair is damp from a shower and he's wearing fresh clothes, as if he's just woken up, but he looks tired and pained—not physically pained, he'd whipped open the door easily enough—but as if something's weighing on him.

He's still standing in the doorway, blocking it. "Can I come in?" Natasha asks, and after a hesitation so slight it's barely noticeable, Clint steps back, swinging the door wider in silent assent.

She pauses to retrieve her picks from the door latch and by the time she follows him inside, Barton's retreated to the living room.

There's a folder spilled on the floor just inside the door that he's ignoring. Natasha scoops it up; it's an official mission briefing, unsealed, and she can't help glancing at it out of curiosity.

_Oh._

She halts just at the living room threshold, staring at the top sheet. And then she flicks through the rest of the contents—photos, profiles, leaflets of tropical locations, a ticket—with disbelief.

When she raises her eyes, Clint's watching her dispassionately. He shrugs. "Yeah. That's what Krippand… recommends."

Somehow Natasha finds her voice. "You've been ordered to…?"

"Ordered? No. Advised."

Her head is spinning, hell, her whole _self_ is being whirlpooled down into a great, black vortex. "He wants you to… to..." She can't make herself say the words.

Clint does it for her, deliberately, crudely. "Get laid, yeah. Krippand says I've been 'distracted', I need to 'get it out of my system'." He laughs, a harsh bark of sound. "That's the Division for you—they've got a solution to _whatever_ ails you."

The file burns like acid—Natasha takes a jerky step forward and drops it onto the coffee table. She has to fight back the nearly overwhelming urge to scream at Clint that he _can't_, she doesn't _want_ him to do something so intimate… with someone else.

The only thing that stills her tongue is that she doesn't have the right.

Being friends, being partners, doesn't let her say who he can or cannot sleep with.

Finally she manages to clamp down on her rapidly fraying emotions. A quick shallow breath to steady her voice, and she's able to ask, with apparent mild interest, "Do you want to?"

He wrenches aside to stare out the single window at the dirty grey sky, but not before she catches the bitter twist to his mouth. He jams his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunching, and Natasha can see his jaw clenching. "Not particularly," he says.

There's broken glass in his voice. Natasha's anguish eases a degree—_Not with them, he doesn't!_ She takes a deep breath, releases it along with the stunning hurt that's been pooling in her chest. "You still have your go-bag?"

Clint whips back around, his eyes startled. "Yeah, I do."

She nods decisively. "Meet me at the place with the popcorn in ten. No, make it fifteen, I have to pick something up."

* * *

Clint's sitting on the rim of the empty fountain when she pulls up, motionless except for his left hand, which is flicking something—pebbles, acorns, Natasha can't see what—at the center sculpture of dancing children that spouts water in warmer weather. A few intrepid kids in heavy winter coats are running around the playground, and there's a small huddle of caretakers sheltering by the stand of evergreens near the picnic tables, but otherwise he has the place to himself. The snack stand where they buy popcorn for Clint to throw at the squirrels is closed for the season, a broad wooden shutter padlocked over the counter. The whole park looks bleak and frozen and grey.

Natasha brakes just outside the gate and taps the horn. Clint tosses one last projectile, snags the strap of his bag as he rises, and strides down the path to meet her.

He brings a wave of bitterly cold air into the car with him, slinging his bag into the back and then sliding into the passenger seat. "Nice car," he says as she pulls back onto the street.

"It's not Division, don't worry. I borrowed it."

He knows her well enough not to ask. Natasha can still hotwire a car in under a minute, and she practices regularly to keep her hand in, but only with the vehicles of people who have annoyed her. She keeps track of where they park, in case she ever needs a discreet ride.

As she heads out of the city to the interstate, Clint bumps the seat back a notch and settles in, head tipped back to stare at the sky. He doesn't want to talk, then. _Okay_, Natasha thinks, accelerating to merge onto the highway, _we have plenty of time, once we get there._

They spend the trip north in silence. Clint drifts off a couple of times—from the corner of her eye, Natasha can see his hands go slack in his lap before tensing awake again. She figures he must have been up all night; she leaves the radio off, keeps her thoughts to herself.

She exits the interstate to a secondary road under a lowering sky. A gusty wind has kicked up, and the trees thickly lining the roadside twist and thrash in it.

She pulls up at last to a driveway bracketed by tall stone gateposts and barricaded by a swaybacked wooden gate. Clint stirs as she opens her door, rolling his head around to watch her get out. There's a tarnished metal plate about waist-high on the left-hand gatepost, and she presses her palm to it. The plate flips open, revealing a touchpad; Natasha taps in a code and presses her thumb to its small screen. The gate, despite its appearance as an old hinged farm gate that needs to be manually lifted aside, instead slides smoothly and silently into the right-hand pillar.

Natasha drives slowly up the long, rutted driveway. At the end is a small, two-story farmhouse, its white paint chipped and faded to a dingy grey. A cracked brick walkway leads through matted, overgrown grass to the front porch; the windows are blank and dark, with a straggling, thorny bush growing beneath each one on the first floor. The whole place looks as if it had been abandoned years before and left to quietly deteriorate ever since.

The driveway widens to a surprisingly well-graveled area at the back of the house, sheltered by a thick line of pine trees on two sides and by an arbor draped in bare vines on the third. "We're here."

The back door opens not with a key but with another code entered into a pad that folds out of the doorframe. Clint looks around at the snug little mudroom within, a laundry tucked in one corner and shelves full of outdoor equipment lining the walls. A second door leads to a quietly opulent kitchen; an archway beyond that reveals a glimpse of a room with plush furniture arranged in front of a woodstove. "Whose house is this?"

Natasha taps at the touchpad on the wall; a quiet _ting_ and a diode lighting to green indicates a security system has been activated. "Carter's. She invited me after that clusterfuck in Helmand."

"The thing with the girl?"

"Yeah," Natasha says tightly. She doesn't like to remember that op, how it had blown up so spectacularly and hurt some very innocent people. "Carter said if I ever needed to recoup again, I was welcome to stay."

Clint wanders through the kitchen and then the living room while she's peeling off her coat, opening doors (a pantry, a utility room, a front door of reinforced steel behind the aged wood panels) and checking windows (bullet-proof glass, lined with blackout shades). Everything is clean and modern, belying outside appearances. He glances at the staircase at the back of the living room. "What's up there?"

"Bedrooms. A bathroom. Trapdoor to the roof." Natasha is opening kitchen cupboards, pulling out mugs, a can of coffee, and a sealed plastic container of sugar. "I should have stopped for milk."

"Black is fine. I'm gonna check upstairs."

The rich scent of coffee is filling the downstairs when Clint returns, his steps silent despite his combat boots. Natasha glances up as he parks himself in the archway, one ankle crossed over the other, shoulder propped on the wall. "I found soup, chili, and tuna in the pantry; there's bread in the deep freeze, and burgers and fish."

"Not really hungry."

"Okay." She pours herself a mug of coffee, nods at the pot for him to help himself. "I'm going to get a fire going."

Flames lick up from the kindling to the chunks of wood arranged in the firebox. Natasha watches for a moment to makes sure it's caught, then swings the woodstove door shut with a _clang_ and sits back on her heels. When she glances up, Barton's skulking in the doorway again, same pose, just with a mug gripped in his hands. Natasha pushes up from the floor and slides into the nearest chair. She points to an adjacent one. "C'mere. Sit."

He does, but reluctantly, that old shuttered look on his face. "Tasha…"

"Time to talk to me. I'm your partner, right? I'll listen, no judgment." When he just stares down into his coffee, she leans forward. "Barton." It's going to kill her to say it, but, "No judgment, no guilt. If you want a no-strings hookup with one of those girls, you can tell me…"

"No!" His coffee sloshes, and he bends, thumping the mug onto the floor. When he straightens, his ears are bright red. "No, okay? I don't want to with a… an _arranged companion_," he spits out.

"So why does Krippand think you need to? I mean, why now? What changed to make him give you that kind of list?" His ears turn even redder and he stares at the floor, stubbornly not meeting her eyes. Pieces start tumbling into place in her mind, and Natasha frowns. "Barton? Does it have anything to do with Central America? The way you disobeyed orders, went against mission parameters, to bust me out?"

Clint throws his hands in the air, his chair scraping backward as he lunges to his feet. Natasha spins to keep him in sight as he strides across the room.

"Is that it? He thinks, what? You're being too protective of me? Because Krippand isn't the only one annoyed by that, you know. I do not need you patronizing me, charging to my rescue the minute things get rough. I'm _trained_ for rough."

"I can't help it, okay?" Clint wheels and stomps back. "I'm supposed to listen to you being hurt and do_ nothing_?"

"If it's part of your job, yes! You work long-range, I work close-up. Sometimes you have to hang back while I take a hit."

"That part of the job sucks!"

"Maybe so, but I can handle it! I thought you could, too!" Natasha finds herself on her feet, hands clenched.

"I thought I could!" He's yelling now too, eyes blazing. "It's harder than I thought, listening while some asshole hurts someone I lo…"

He breaks off, the anger abruptly wiped away by an appalled expression.

Natasha falls back a step, one hand groping for the chair back to steady herself. All her breath leaves her in a rush.

Clint looks wildly around the room—Natasha's between him and his avenues of escape, the kitchen door and the staircase. He spins and strides to the front door, giving the doorknob a vicious twist. It's locked; for a second he stares at the security touchpad and then his shoulders slump and he drops his head to rest on the door. "Jesus."

Behind him, Natasha has worked air into her lungs. She wets her lips. "Clint?"

"Don't, okay?"

"But you…"

"_Don't!"_ He pounds one fist into the door. "I already know, okay? I know I can't, and I know you don't feel that way. Krippand knows it too, that's why the girls… why they kind of looked like you. But even though I can never, with you… I don't want them."

She lets go of the chair, takes a step forward. "What are you talking about?"

He still has his forehead pressed to the door. "I never made a move. You needed time, I know that, once Division recruited you. All that training, and field testing, and then the missions… and we were friends, you always said so, and partners… and I thought it would be enough. You're a professional, Krippand says. So I respected that, and I let it go… except I can't, always, when you're being hurt. I can't be as professional as you. I'm sorry, Tasha."

"Oh my god." Natasha takes another step. "You're a jackass."

"I know, and I'm sorry. I'll do my best not to ever go all knight-in-shining-armor on you again, but if it's too weird, I understand. If you don't want to work with me anymore, just say..."

"And I'm a jackass, too." Natasha's across the room then, and she reaches up, takes his shoulders in her hands, and turns him around. She gets the briefest glimpse of his eyes gone wide, alarm flaring…

And then she draws his head down, brings their lips together, and kisses him.

She kisses him for all she's worth, with years of pent-up longing, and denial, and the distance of misunderstanding. Her split lip cracks open again but she ignores it for the utter pleasure of his mouth on hers. Clint makes a startled noise in the back of his throat, and the air moves around her, as if he's flailing helplessly.

And then his hand lights on her head, fingers curving around and threading into her bright red hair and he's kissing her back, kissing her at last. His mouth slides sweet against hers and Natasha rises up on her toes, to press against the warm solidity of him. She wraps her arms around him and holds fast.

Clint pulls his mouth free with a muffled groan, and she loosens her grip instantly. "Sorry! I forgot—is it bad, your chest?"

"No, no, s'fine." The tip of his tongue skims over his lips and Natasha sees blood on his mouth. He brushes her lips gently with the pad of his thumb, fingers curling softly against her bruised jaw. "You, where he hit you—I shouldn't be pressing on your mouth."

"Oh, yes, you should." Natasha slides her hand over his, drawing it to her mouth for a quick kiss on the back of his knuckles before placing his hand back on her shoulder so she can sink into his embrace again. "To hell with my split lip—I've waited _years_ for this."

She rocks him back against the door so every possible inch of their bodies are touching. His mouth is warm and firm under hers, and she barely feels the sting of her split lip, even when she nudges his mouth open and _oh dear gods_, his tongue slips in and she nearly melts with the sweet heat of it. Clint gives a soft growl, one hand in her hair again, the other heavy in the small of her back, pulling her closer, tighter.

Natasha slides her mouth on his and leans in to the heat of him and Clint shifts, a drag of his jeans against hers, friction that nearly makes her whimper, shifts so one thigh settles neatly between her legs and presses there. A little tug at her lower back, a little push at their mouths to deepen the kiss, and she _does_ whimper then, broken off in the back of her throat.

Clint pulls away, breathing hard. "Hurting you?"

"No. Stop _talking_."

She dives in again, drinking him in, one hand gripping the short hair at the back of his neck to keep him from lifting away from her. He starts a slow, rolling motion with his hips and Natasha nearly ignites. She raises one leg and hooks her ankle behind him so she can crowd ever closer to the hard shift of his muscles.

He rolls to the right just as she presses close, and she feels him then, settling hard and hot in the aching softness between her legs. His hands drop to her hips and drag her against him, arching up against her as she bears down. They move together once, twice… and then Clint wrenches his mouth away once more with a harsh gasp.

"Tasha, Tasha…"

"You keep _talking_," she moans, reaching to pull his mouth back to hers, but Clint throws one hand up.

"I'm not gonna want to stop. In a minute, I am not going to want to stop. So if you don't want to, with me…"

She shivers to hear the thin edge of desperation in his voice, shivers as her breath hitches, trying to catch up to the frantic racing of her heart. She untwists her ankle from where it's tangled with his legs and reluctantly, with a wince, straightens from where their lower bodies are jammed together. His hand has come to rest against her neck, and she turns and rubs her cheek against it.

"Once upon a time…" She almost smiles at his sudden frown, almost but for how imperative it is to say this. "Once upon a time, there was a girl, who was lost. And then there was a boy, who came and found her, and after that they were friends. And one night when they had been friends for a while, the boy came out to meet the girl, and he was dressed all in black, because when he sat in the theater's catwalks he needed to be inconspicuous, and also it looks way cool.

"And the girl looked at him," and Natasha curls her fingers around Clint's hand, "and suddenly her world had tilted," and she steps backward, their hands linked, "and the girl fell, and fell so far and so deep that there was never any chance," she takes another step, back toward the staircase and drawing him with her, "that anyone else would ever do."

Clint looks at her, and then his eyes fall shut for a second. When he opens them again, they're bright, and filled with the unspoken. "You're sure."

"Hell, yeah." She rises on tiptoe, rests her forehead on his. "Come upstairs with me?" she whispers.

He squeezes her fingers and they turn and climb the staircase together.

An LED nightlight blinks on as they reach the second floor. It casts a cool blue glow over the upper hallway and the three doors spaced along it; Natasha practically drags them into the room she'd stayed in once before.

The bed is just visible in the ambient light spilling from the hallway; Natasha shoves Clint towards it. "Sit. Boots off."

She kicks off her own boots—steel-toed, with sheaths for knives at the ankles, despite appearing to be merely fashionable footwear—and reaches for the top button on her shirt.

"Wait." Clint is before her again at once, brushing aside her hands so he can undo the button at her throat himself. It slides free; he slips the next one open and folds back her shirt collar, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. A soft brush of lips and a rough scrape of evening beard and Natasha shivers, letting her head fall back. His fingers trail down, loosening more buttons until he can draw the shirt from her shoulders.

Another soft-scrape of a kiss, this time to her bared shoulder; Natasha sucks in a shallow breath as Clint nudges the thin strap of her camisole down her arm so he can kiss his way back up to her neck- _there_, that spot _there_, beneath her ear- where his touch rattles a hard shiver down her back.

He slides his hands down her sides to tug at her hem; "Can I?" he whispers against her ear, and Natasha steps back, raises her arms. Clint peels her camisole over her head and tosses it into the dark.

Natasha turns, letting the dim light brush her skin, and Clint makes a noise like he's been punched in the chest again. He reaches out; calloused fingertips graze her breasts, tracing almost reverently up their rounded sides. Natasha sighs with pleasure, arching so her breasts settle neatly into the curve of his palms. His thumbs stroke, circling pebbled-tight peaks while his breath rasps, harsh in the quiet dark room.

It's not enough; Natasha fumbles for the bottom of his shirt, needing skin beneath her fingers rather than cloth. "Off. Now." She pulls, and he ducks, and the shirt drags up over his head and is gone.

_Oh._ Her hands fall to the sharp curves of his shoulders, smoothing across their breadth and down the sinewy length of his arms. His muscles tense under her hands when she slides them back up once more, his chest rising on a sharply-indrawn breath. She pushes at one shoulder, turning him toward the faint hallway light, and curses quietly in Russian.

The bruise spans nearly his entire chest, a dark mottling centered around an ugly deep red spot over his breastbone where the bullet smacked his vest. Natasha's hands hover, not quite daring to touch, even lightly. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

He catches her hand, bringing it to his chest and covering it with his. His heart is pounding as rapidly as if he's been running. "It's an _excellent_ idea. Long as you don't knock me with an elbow, I'll be fine," he says hoarsely.

She curls in to him then, soft bare breast to rough bare chest, their arms circling each other. He nudges her chin up, takes her mouth in another deep, drowning kiss.

Natasha rolls her hips, and that deliciously hard ridge finds the cleft of her thighs again; she rocks subtly back and forth on him until Clint groans. She smiles into the sound, sliding her hands around from his back.

The tight planes of his belly quiver as she burrows her hands between their bodies, zeroing in on the button of his jeans. Clint drags his mouth from hers, to mutter against her hair, "Oh god, oh god..."

"Hold on..."

"I'm _trying_ to..."

"We should at least get our pants off," Natasha tells him breathlessly, and wrenches open the front of his jeans.

He gasps at the release of pressure, surging up into her hand as she dips it to his waistband. She strokes him through the damp cotton of his shorts, reveling in the soft frantic noise he makes as her fingers tighten and squeeze. He shoves one-handed at his jeans, wresting one side down his hip while his other grips at her shoulder, rocking her. "Don't stop!"

"Are you going to?"

"Soon." Clint twists his arm, still working desperately at his jeans. "Not for another minute."

Natasha thinks hazily that she has about half that before he explodes. Clint is shaking under the rhythm of her hand, nearly vibrating. She strokes him, a firm tug from base to tip, and his face falls to the crook of her neck, his breath a hot gust against her skin. He bites down, lightly, and Natasha's eyes roll back in her head.

Breathing hard, she steps back; Clint reaches for her, impeded by the denim tangled around his kness. Natasha fends him off with a warning hand. "I need my clothes off," she says shortly.

She bends and sweeps jeans and and underwear down her legs. The bed is waiting when she steps free, a wide expanse of smooth cotton with the coverlet flung back. Natasha slides bare into the bed and stretches luxuriously on sheets cool against her overheated skin. She holds out one arm. "C'mere."

"Just a sec... I got... somewhere..." Clint's rummaging madly through his bag on the floor, his back a pale curve in the dim light.

"What are you looking for?"

"Condoms." He's too focused on his search for embarrassment. There's a zipping noise of another pocket opening and the metallic clatter of weapons being shifted.

Natasha pushes up on one elbow. "I'm on two different kinds of Division birth control, and the post-mission bloodwork would catch anything if we ever had the opportunity to pick up something. C'mere, Clint." When he pauses and looks back over his shoulder at her, she smiles. "I want to feel _you_, just you. Will you please just come to bed?"

He needs no further urging. Before she can blink, he's launched onto the bed, pulling her into his arms. Their legs tangle; he shoves, hard and damp and urgent, against her thigh, rocking while their mouths meet in another deep kiss. Natasha squirms to work his thigh between her legs, gasping at the friction, even sweeter without the barrier of cloth.

Clint slides down, scratching his rough cheek against the sensitive skin of her breast, and then tugging one tight peak between his lips. His tongue swirls and Natasha clasps his head, holding him to her as he sucks gently. "That feels so good," she manages to moan.

The wrecked sound of her voice nearly shatters Clint's fraying hold on his control. His mouth pulls wetly from her breast and he pushes up on his arms, hips shoving convulsively against her leg. "I'm really close..."

"Here!" Natasha twists lithely, centering her hips beneath his so that he's cradled by her thighs. He bumps clumsily at her, pushing futilely as he poises, shaking, overtop her, so Natasha reaches between them, takes him in hand, and guides him to her. His hips jerk, and she presses him, tip sliding in wetness, to her entrance. "Push! Don't hold back, just..."

He surges forward and steals every last ounce of breath from her. One deep, powerful thrust has him buried in her, seated to the root. Natasha arches up in a soundless gasp and Clint freezes, arms trembling with strain. After a second, the sting ebbs and Natasha subsides on the bed; her motion makes Clint slide in her, withdrawing a bit, and he gives a strangled cry. "Don't move! I'm gonna!"

She reaches up, strokes his damp cheek. "Go ahead," she says hoarsely. "Don't wait for me." When he still hesitates, tremors racking him, she licks her swollen lip. "I want to watch you," she murmurs.

He breaks then. He pulls back, drives forward... and then he's moving, hard, angling his hips for an urgent, upward stride. Natasha gives herself up to it, the sweet, aching friction and pounding rhythm and the push and slide of him. She flings one leg up around his waist, feeling the strength in the shift and flex of his muscles.

Her eyes fall closed under the delicious weight of him, heat building. She's coiling up, tensing, nerves singing...

Clint's coiled tight, too; she feels his body clench, his driving rhythm falter into a fast stutter. Her eyes fly open, and he gasps, hard.

She watches him shatter as he spills himself into her.

His hands are bruising her shoulders, his neck and back straining; after a long, tense moment he moans, and shudders one last time, and collapses bonelessly half on top of her.

Natasha nearly moans too, in frustration.

Instead she lifts a shaky hand, runs it through the damp spikes of his hair. He's panting, hot against her skin, and he's still shaking, little tremors that chase up and down his body.

After another long moment, he twitches, and mouths a kiss onto her breast that's pressed beneath his cheek. "Wow."

Natasha's eyes fall closed on a shiver at the roughness in his voice. "Wow indeed," she says tightly.

"That was... that was..." Clint leans forward, brushes her lips with his. "Better than anything," he whispers.

He's sinking down again, muscles going slack and loose. Natasha arches her hips up before he can crash into sleep. "Can you... for me?"

"Oh!" He starts, abashed. "Sorry! It was too quick?"

"Kinda." Her hips arch again, imploring. "It's okay, I told you to... but can you do for me now?"

Clint looks down at her helplessly. "I think it'll take a few minutes before I can go again."

"Like this, then." Natasha fumbles for his hand, draws it down to her center.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," Clint confesses as his fingers nudge against her.

Natasha's breathing is already quickening again. "I'll show you."

She arranges his fingers, whispering guidance, _Press here, rock your hand like this, rub here, harder._ Clint shifts higher on the bed as his hand starts to move, hers overtop it to guide his motions. He alternates pressing kisses to the shivery spot on her neck, and nipping at her breasts. And while she spirals back into hot, hurting pleasure, he whispers rough precious words against her hair.

As she teeters on the brink, Natasha throws her head back and cries out, both hands flying to the sides and clenching the sheets.

And so Clint finishes her by himself, his agile fingers working her with calloused friction.

He always was a fast learner.

* * *

After, Natasha comes down from her high cradled in his arms. Her bruised mouth rests against his bruised chest and his hand strokes slowly through her hair.

She thinks sleepily about speaking the words tumbling around inside her.

But then she turns her head and his gaze meets hers. And everything they need to say or hear is in their eyes.

* * *

In the deep of the night, Clint stirs, brought to wakefulness by Natasha's absence from his side.

He lies quietly, assessing. The room is still dim, but the scant light has changed; there are no sounds to indicate she's simply gone to the bathroom, or is roaming the house.

He sits up and sees her, a paler silhouette against the dark panes of the window. She's turned off the nightlight and raised the blackout curtain, and stands looking out at the night. "What's wrong?" he croaks.

"Nothing," she answers softly, without turning. And then, "It's snowing."

Clint slides out of bed, wincing, and pads over to stand at her back. His breath catches.

Snow has already covered the ground, icing the trees and shrubs in fantastical shapes. More is falling in thick flakes, swirling past the glass.

Natasha leans back against him. Her bare skin feels chilled after the warmth of the bed, and Clint draws her close, his arms beneath her breasts, the curve of her bottom snug against his front. He laces one hand with hers.

Outside, the snowflakes dance in the wind.

"I won't give you up," Natasha whispers fiercely. She bends her elbow to press their hands over her heart. "The rules about fraternization, though- I can't think Krippand will ignore them."

"I don't care what Division's rules are," Clint murmurs.

"I don't care either. But if they try to force us apart..."

"We'll be discreet," Clint interrupts. "And if that's not enough, well... we'll skip. We have skills that can take us anywhere." He gazes out at the mesmerizing swirl of snowfall. "We'll disappear, just the two of us."

Her heartbeat is strong and steady beneath their entwined hands. Natasha tilts her head back against his shoulder, and he feels her smile. "They don't stand a chance," she agrees. "We'll be a force to be reckoned with."

_end._

* * *

Thank you for reading! Clint and Natasha go on to have epic adventures together, and maybe someday do have to strike out on their own, when they get tired of the government jerking them around. I think I've come to the end of this particular 'verse, though.

I do have a couple of different things brewing in my head- a non-AU, post-Avengers-movie let's-beat-up-on-Clint thing, and also I've been messing with a post-Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol team!fic idea, where Brandt gets the stuffing kicked out of him. Renner just looks so pretty battered and bloody that I can't help myself.

Not sure which one will see daylight, I have to decide which to work on next. Until then, thank you again.


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